Look Back (Not) In Anger
by Darkenning
Summary: An untold tale of the first year, reflected in events of the third year.


**Look Back (Not) In Anger****  
**

_Now: Yokai Academy, Senior Year_

"I think maybe the joke's gone on long enough, don't you?" Moka asked as Tsukune led her by the hand, her eyes covered with a blindfold.

"Almost there," he assured her, glancing backward. It was still almost a little eerie to him, to hear her speaking like Outer Moka, but in Inner Moka's voice. The slow growth of the pink in her otherwise silver hair didn't make it any less disconcerting. The change was good, but ... well. It was happening whatever he thought about it, and so he accepted it as calmly as he could.

He loved them both, after all.

"Seriously, Tsukune, if we get wherever we're going and this blindfold comes off and all our friends and friendly opponents are there to shout 'surprise', I'm going to have to start teaching people their place again."

Even when they were being somewhat unlovable. "That's not it," he assured her. "Anyway, we're here. You can take off the blindfold."

She promptly reached up and did so, revealing a curious light in her red eyes ... which turned into a somewhat annoyed light, on a frowning face, when she saw where they were - specifically, on the deck by the school's pool, which appeared to be deserted at the moment save for the two of them.

"Surprise," Tsukune said, half-smiling.

"... is the surprise that you have quite lost your reason?" Moka asked, looking at him. "That I'm better able to resist the effects now doesn't mean that I'll seek it out willingly, and -"

"Ah," Tsukune interjected, holding up two fingers. "As we learned in newspaper club, you should show instead of tell. So use your senses."

Moka continued to frown, but she did consider her surroundings a bit more carefully. There was something odd, something that she couldn't quite fathom, and yet it seemed so ... what was it? And then she realized that it wasn't something she could see, but rather what she could smell. A faint scent, and yes, a familiar one. Slowly, she walked closer to the edge of the deck, standing over the water, and breathed in the scent.

"The herbs," she said after a moment. "The ones that I mix in with my bathwater to keep it from hurting me." She turned back to look at Tsukune. "You filled the pool with them?"

He shrugged, smiling.

"That must have cost a -" She broke off, since that was not something she really cared about. "Why? I didn't ... I didn't ask for this."

He looked down, embarrassed. "Well ... I was thinking, a while ago, about all the stuff that happened in our first year. And about ... well, _that_."

Moka considered asking just which _that_ he was talking about, since there had been a really ridiculous amount of _that_ in their first year of high school. But abruptly, the answer came to her ...

_Then: Yokai Academy, Freshman Year_

She'd been angrier than he could ever remember _anyone_ being at him. Yet he supposed that he should be amazed at her self-control, for in slapping him across the face, she had not removed his head from his neck. And then she'd raged at him, telling him how badly he'd hurt what she called the true Moka with his insensitivity, how she'd been _crying_, how she hated people who could do that to others. "Leave," she'd finally sneered, and turned and walked away.

He hadn't been able to say a single word, only stand there and stare at her back, walking out of his life forever, as Kurumu had fussed over his bruised cheek.

For three days, he'd thought he'd lost her forever. And then she was back, smiling and bashful about having taken three days to recover from her injuries, and it was as though nothing had changed.

But Tsukune knew better.

"So, you forgive me for all that?" he asked her, when they had a moment to themselves.

"Of course!" Moka assured him, blushing. "If anything, it was more my own fault than yours."

"Huh?"

"I mean, I had all kinds of chances to tell you that I can't swim because ... well, anyway, I could have told you at any time, and I should have known you wouldn't get upset about it. But I let my embarrassment get in the way, and you almost got hurt again. We _both_ got hurt, so there's no point in getting upset at you for that. I'm just glad it all worked out in the end."

Tsukune started to offer relieved agreement to this ... but stopped before he said a word.

The angry red eyes were still haunting him. When she'd come out before that, she'd almost seemed playful more than anything else. But that time ...

Tsukune swallowed. "Moka ... I'm going to do something now that might not make a lot of sense. But you trust me, right?"

"Of course!" she answered. "What -"

He reached out and pulled off her rosary.

Moments later, a very different girl was standing in front of him, staring at him. He couldn't call her expression confused, but there was a clear lack of understanding, which she made clear immediately. "Boy," the other Moka said at last. "What in Lilith's name are you _doing?_ There is no enemy for me to -"

He took a deep breath and bowed deeply to her. "I apologize," he said. "I did wrong, and I apologize."

He could feel her staring at the top of his head. "What?" she asked.

"I did wrong," he repeated. "I apologize to you for what I did to you. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me."

"... she has already forgiven you, so -"

"That is that, and this is this," he interjected, still not looking up.

He thought he heard a faint growl, or possibly a grinding noise, coming from her. "Boy," she eventually said. "Lift your head."

He did so, meeting her eyes, and flinched at the obvious anger there.

"You, I think, have developed a very strange set of ideas, somehow," she began to say. "I was angry at you because she was angry at you. That is all that it was. I am Moka's shield. And I am her sword. That is _all_ that I am. I am not your friend, boy. I -"

"I don't accept that," he interjected again.

"Excuse me?" she growled.

"If you were just, just some kind of weapon, you wouldn't have talked to Moka when she was upset about Kurumu. You're ... you're a person," he said, somewhat impulsively. "And I like both Inner Moka and Outer Moka. Moka is Moka, no matter what she looks like."

She stared at him, then sighed. "Fool," she said dismissively. "Do not summon me again without a better reason than this." Without another word, she snatched the Rosary out of his hand and held it up to her neck. Almost instantly, the chain snaked out to attach itself once more, and Moka reverted and collapsed forward into his arms.

_Now, Again_

"I was wrong," Moka mused as she looked down into the greenish waters. "I was wrong about ... so many things."

"A few," Tsukune agreed, a bit sheepishly.

"Quite a few. Not the fact that you can be very foolish, sometimes, though," she added, looking back at him. "Buying all those herbs for one afternoon in a swimming pool? Really?"

He shrugged. "Well, if I'm going to be a teacher here, I should start practicing teaching, right?" he said. "And I can't think of a better way to do that, then by teaching my dearest friend how to swim. So it's worth it, and more than worth it."

She was blushing. "Fool," she said fondly.

"Okay, then I'll be a fool. Um, I also bought you a swimsuit, and I think I set it down over -" He looked off to one side and was somewhat blindsided by the skirt abruptly tossed in the general direction of his face.

"Swimsuits are for children," Moka said, by now wearing nothing but a smile.

"Uh," said Tsukune. "Well. If you _insist_ ..."

And that, of course, would have been when their friends and friendly opponents would normally have popped out of nowhere, to interrupt this charming moment ... but since this story, unlike other stories about these two, doesn't have to end on a funny note, we'll just leave these two to their ... lesson, let's say.


End file.
